DM p38-40 Software Feb09.qxp 29/01/2009 13:08 Page 38
Software Review
Using the force
Designed initially as a sales force automation tool, the scope of the salesforce package has
evolved over the years to tackles a wider range of challenges – so how does it measure it up
when it comes to marketing and CRM, asks James Lawson?
Navigation is quick,
simple and intuitive with
plenty of quick links and
drop down menus.
A
s the name suggests, salesforce started out it’s still these two digital media that get pretty much
very much as a Sales Force Automation tool. all the attention within the marketing module. Direct
Though the company now sells itself as a mail doesn’t even get a listing in the drop-down cam-
platform for multiple on-demand applications (via its paign channel selection menu, though the telemar-
Force.com and AppExchange initiatives) rather than keting or another similar template could be edited to
just customer management, sales is still its most fea- suit.
ture-rich and well-developed package. Does marketing As well as choosing contacts to include, campaign
measure up? planning lets you set dates and ascribe values to cam-
paign costs and so forth for future reporting. It is pos-
Business focused sible to run follow-up campaigns or to target respon-
Salesforce is designed to accommodate a variety of ders, non-responders and so forth from previous cam-
typical small business users, from sales and marketing paigns – which puts it above a number of other mid-
to customer support, and the navigation drop-down market tools. Permissions are handled well, in that
menu on the top right includes all the standard CRM the campaign owner or administrator can control all
functions you would expect likes sales, service and aspects of who edits as opposed to just viewing a
marketing. Navigation itself is simple: simply choose campaign. Otherwise it offers only the most basic
the functional area you want to be in from the drop- parts of manual campaign planning.
down menu on the top right, then pick one of the List selection is middle of the road, but querying is
tabs to navigate within it. There’s a series of quick still better than most midmarket installed competi-
links on the left pane for recently-viewed documents, tors. The standard Find function offers a limited set
message and alerts. of operators such as includes/excludes and greater-
Salesforce is to be commended for recognising that than/less-than to use with the database fields. The
other channels exist beyond web and email, though advanced filter option removes the default AND crite-
38 Database Marketing February 2009
www.dmarket.co.uk
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